FUCKING SHARK!
I think pilots call it a ‘black hole illusion.’ A suitably ominous term for the feeling of disorientation caused by approaching a fixed light in darkness, with no other visual stimuli. I had something like that happen to me once. Unfortunately, it was at the bottom of the fucking ocean.

It was my first ever night dive, so I was already apprehensive. After a probably ill-advised beer, me and my two friends suited up, flicked our torches on, jumped off the back of the boat, grabbed the anchor rope, and began a slow 30-metre descent to the sea bed.

If you’ve ever been in the off-shore sea at night, you’ll know how completely black it is. Turn your torch off for a moment and you’re not even sure if your eyes are open. It’s eerie as fuck, and only slightly alleviated by knowing your friends are close by.I reached the anchor in the sand first, and glanced over my shoulder to check their progress.

All looked ok. Two bright spots of light steadily approaching me. Then something odd happened. The rear light shot up rapidly. The front light spun round in a circle. Both shot forwards and backwards, up and down, round and fucking round, weird jerky movements like they were being attacked. With no frame of reference, my head couldn’t process this and basically shut down. It’s like being in limbo. Everything spatial that you take for granted every moment of the day – up is up, down is down, there’s the floor, there’s the sky – disintegrates completely. I started panicking, squeezed my eyes shut and tried to think about anything else other than where the fuck I was.

The nausea passed, I opened my eyes and looked at my own torch. Ok, at least that was working. But unfortunately I was completely lost now. I’d been spinning around and screaming bubbles and had no idea which way I was facing. I was just suspended in complete blackness. I rotated my head looking for my friends’ torches – no sign of them. I can’t overstate the terror I felt at that moment. It literally felt like a nightmare. Alone at the bottom of a black sea, confused and lost, with an inexplicable force taking your friends away. I still have vivid dreams about it, something I always thought was Hollywood bollocks.

Trying not to go mental, I very slowly began sweeping my outstretched torch hand in a circle. About halfway through I spotted some rocks – thank fuck, there’s the sea bed.

I was floating upright, completely upside down. But at least I knew that now.

After a minute of barely-suppressed hysteria, I managed to find the anchor and shot right back up to the surface, including an extremely impatient safety stop. I flopped onto the back of the boat. I can admit it, I was sobbing my fucking heart out.

“Alright you idiot, calm down” said … my mates. Behind them a Japanese woman in full scuba kit was apologising profusely.Eh?When we jumped in, this lady – an instructor with a group of novices – thought my friends were part of her group who’d decided “Fuck it” and gone for an impromptu, unprepared night dive. So she dived in and wrestled them back to the surface, explaining the little light show I’d been treated to, and my brief underwater journey into madness.

Sometimes when people are late for appointments nowadays, these friends take great delight in asking “You don’t think a FUCKING SHARK got them do you?”Twats.
(Wet-chinned bag shankerCannot parse Wogan, Fri 2 Nov 2012, 15:48,
5 replies)